Home Hygiene in low income communities

In the developing world, for decades, universal access to water and sanitation has been seen as the essential step in reducing the preventable ID burden, but it is now clear that this is best achieved by programmes that integrate hygiene promotion with improvements in water quality and availability, and sanitation. About 2 million people die every year due to diarrhoeal diseases, most of them are children less than 5 years of age. The most affected are the populations in developing countries, living in extreme conditions of poverty, normally peri-urban dwellers or rural inhabitants. Providing access to sufficient quantities of safe water, the provision of facilities for a sanitary disposal of excreta, and introducing sound hygiene behaviours are of capital importance to reduce the burden of disease caused by these risk factors.

Research shows that, if widely practiced, hand washing with soap could reduce diarrhoea by almost fifty percent and respiratory infections by nearly twenty-five percent. Hand washing with soap also reduces the incidence of skin diseases, eye infections like trachoma and intestinal worms, especially ascariasis and trichuriasis.

Other hygiene practices, such as safe disposal of waste, surface hygiene, and care of domestic animals, are also important in low income communities to break the chain of infection transmission.

What is Hygiene?

Hygiene is an old concept related to medicine, as well as to personal and professional care practices related to most aspects of living. In medicine and in home (domestic) and everyday life settings, hygiene practices are employed as preventative measures to reduce the incidence and spreading of disease. In the manufacture of food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and other products, good hygiene is a key part of quality assurance i.e. ensuring that the product complies with microbial specifications appropriate to its use. The terms cleanliness (or cleaning) and hygiene are often used interchangeably, which can cause confusion. In general, hygiene mostly means practices that prevent spread of disease-causing organisms. Since cleaning processes (e.g., hand washing) remove infectious microbes as well as dirt and soil, they are often the means to achieve hygiene. Other uses of the term appear in phrases including: body hygiene, personal hygiene, sleep hygiene, mental hygiene, dental hygiene, and occupational hygiene, used in connection with public health. Hygiene is also the name of a branch of science that deals with the promotion and preservation of health, also called hygienics. Hygiene practices vary widely, and what is considered acceptable in one culture might not be acceptable in another.

Heating, Cooling, Ventilation and Electrical Systems

CMHC's Healthy House in Toronto ensures that you are breathing clean, fresh air in an energy-efficient environment.

House design, landscaping and technology are all used to help heat and cool the house and reduce dependence on the earth's resources.

Large energy-efficient south-facing windows and solar panels capture sunlight, while the thermal mass of the house — concrete floors and walls — make efficient use of solar energy. The house uses about one-tenth of the amount of energy needed to heat a conventional house. This means that sunlight can provide most of the energy for space heating needs. Trees and ivy trellises provide shade in summer, and do not block sunlight during winter.

Energy storage and conversion technology ensures that the solar energy is available in whatever form is needed year-round. When additional energy is needed, a co-generation unit supplies additional electricity and heat.

The ventilation system is designed to ensure that the air entering the house is as clean as possible and is evenly distributed.

The Benefits of Healthy Housing

Healthy Housing™ provides a healthy indoor environment, conserves the earth's resources, minimizes pollution — and it's affordable.

CMHC has worked with builders, designers, all levels of government, manufacturers and material suppliers to develop economically viable ways to design and build housing that enhances human and environmental health.

Builders learn that Healthy Housing™ allows them to use local materials very efficiently, and to construct competitively priced homes with value-added features.

Occupants find that Healthy Housing™ homes are less expensive and easier to maintain and provide increased comfort and improved indoor air quality for better health.

Communities discover that Healthy Housing™ places less pressure on municipal services, which leads to lower costs for local governments.

And the Earth benefits, too. Healthy Housing™ results in less pollution of air and water than conventional

Keep the Home Dry

By maintaining the roof, gutters, drainage, and interior sources of moisture, most homes can be kept dry.

•Excess moisture in homes creates conditions that can affect health including an increase of asthma symptoms and upper respiratory tract infections.

•Moisture in the home comes from inside sources (cooking, bathing, breathing, and washing) and outside sources (rain, groundwater, plumbing leaks, damp crawlspaces).

•Excess moisture in the home should be prevented through good construction and plumbing systems, temperature control, ventilation and home maintenance.

•Excess moisture and leaks in the home may lead to mold growth, pest infestations, and poor indoor air quality.

•Make sure windows and siding stay in good repair and are covered with intact paint.

•Keep gutters and downspouts clear and intact and make sure that rainwater drains away from the structure at the foundation.

Fundamental Physiologic Needs

Housing should provide for the following physiologic needs:

1.    protection from the elements,

2.    a thermal environment that will avoid undue heat loss,

3.    a thermal environment that will permit adequate heat loss from the body,

4.    an atmosphere of reasonable chemical purity,

5.    adequate daylight illumination and avoidance of undue daylight glare,

6.    direct sunlight,

7.    adequate artificial illumination and avoidance of glare,

8.    protection from excessive noise, and

9.    adequate space for exercise and for children to play.

Who Makes Sure My Home Is Safe and Healthful?

Town Health Officers inspect rented homes to make sure the homes meet basic health and safety rules. Towns, villages, and cities enforce the health and safety rules. The Vermont Division of Fire Safety inspects rented homes for electric and other fire-related health and safety problems. If your rent is subsidized, the Housing Authority that runs the subsidy program inspects the home before you move in and while you live there.

Seeing

This is the ability to observe the immediate environment using our eyes. Naturally, visual physiology requires adequate light in order to effectively see or look at an object. Adequate light is also important for reading, watching TV and attending class lectures in a school. The physical structure of housing provides the required light through two sources: artificial light from electric sources and natural light through the windows from the sun. The minimum recommended light-admitting window area is similar to that for breathing.

Can I Agree to Rent the Home Even Though It Has Health and Safety Problems?

No. Vermont landlord and tenant law does not allow a landlord and tenant to agree that the tenant will live in unsafe housing. The landlord must provide you with a safe, healthful home to live in. Even if you agree, the landlord cannot rent a home with health and safety problems.

Who Must Keep My Home Safe and Healthful?

 Your landlord and you. Vermont landlord and tenant law gives renters the right to live in safe, healthful homes. Your landlord can only rent a home to you if it is healthy and safe when he rents it to you. He must also fix any problems that make it unsafe or unhealthy after you move in. If you cause damage that makes the home you are renting unsafe or unhealthy, your landlord can charge you to fix the damage.

What Does "Safe and Healthful" Housing Mean?

The State of Vermont defines basic health and safety standards for rented homes. All rented homes in Vermont must meet the basic Vermont health and safety rules. Some cities and towns have extra rules. The Vermont rules apply to all rented homes in Vermont. City and town rules are extra rules that apply to your home if the home you rent is in the town or city that made the extra rules. Housing Authorities also have housing health and safety rules. If your rent is subsidized, the Housing Authority health and safety rules apply. These rules are called "Housing Quality Standards" or "HQS." Generally, HQS rules require the same safety standards as Vermont's health and safety rules.

How does housing help us regulate our body heat?

It protects us from the weather, helping us to keep cool by shading us from the heat of the sun, or to keep warm by protecting us from cold, wind and rain.

The exchange of heat between our body and the immediate environment is dependent on the difference of temperature between the two. Relatively cold air is useful to take away excess heat through the process of convection. Convection is involved when there is a heat exchange between our body and relatively cold air moving across the body. Heat loss by conduction is involved when body heat is transferred to a colder surface by direct touch. The third mechanism for heat transfer is radiation, when body heat is lost directly to the immediate environment because of a temperature difference between two objects. Our housing should be suitable to help us regulate our body heat.

Sleeping

Sleep is a time when our body must get complete rest in order to be refreshed for the next day. Sleeping requires a separate room and should be free from any disturbance such as noise and indoor air pollution. The housing structure should provide adequate space in the form of a bedroom that is reasonably free from any environmental hazard that could disrupt sleeping. Separate bedrooms for children and adults are, in many families, a necessity.

Breathing

Breathing is a physiological process that utilizes oxygen for energy production and expels the waste as carbon dioxide (CO₂). Housing must allow adequate fresh air to get into the house and used air to get out. This ventilation of air is facilitated by a window. The area of the window surface through which air can pass must be proportional to the floor area of the room in order to get adequate air supply per given time. A guide of 10% (light and air admitting window area divided by floor area) is assumed to be adequate for residential housing.

What is Housing?

Every family and individual has a basic right to a decent home and a suitable living environment. Housing is a basic prerequisite for health. This right is noted in the constitutions of many countries, including Ethiopia. Housing is a term that we use for a physical structure in which we live.

Just stop reading for a moment and ask yourself: what is housing?

You may say housing is a shelter where we sleep and live, or a place in which we cook our food, or a place where a child grows, or a place where we get clean water for drinking.

You will probably have a long list like this. The question is, then, how will you provide a complete understanding of housing so that members of your community understand you?

What is Islam?

Islam refers to the religion taught by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, a
major political and religious figure of the 7th century CE. Islam is
the dominant religion of northern Africa, the Middle East, and South
Asia. As with Christianity, there is no single orthodoxy in Islam but
a multitude of traditions which are generally categorized as Sunni and
Shia, although there are other minor groups as well. Wahhabi is the
dominant Muslim schools of thought in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
There are also several Islamic republics, including Iran, which is run
by a Shia Supreme Leader.